


The Blinding of Icarus

by RoeOcean



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bad BDSM Etiquette, Davesprite has a cloaca b/c shush he's a bird, Dubious Consent, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Implied Relationships, Sibling Incest, Vriska is a huge bitch bluh bluh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 02:57:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3961849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoeOcean/pseuds/RoeOcean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Betapalooza 2015! </p><p>If dead Daves are the enemy, what does that make Davesprite? Some doomed copy lucky enough to get a second chance, combined with an animal totem that drives his id?</p><p>Killing your double isn’t just sound advice to preserve yourself. It’s a cosmic contract, an irrefutable obligation that’s fulfilled as often as a watch’s gears notch to turn the second hand of time. If Davesprite existed solely as a copy, an inferior beta, he’d long be dead.</p><p>Rose can help assuage his fears, if only for a moment. Then again, they have the rest of their lives to contemplate the joy of playing second-fiddle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Blinding of Icarus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spockandawe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockandawe/gifts).



Rose isn’t particularly picky about what substances make up her booze. Apples, limes, irradiated steaks — her fingers lazily drift over the keyboard as she selects one ingredient after another. Her head aches, and her foot taps the concrete floor, creating tinny click-clicking sounds reminiscent of beetles. The rhythm keeps her sluggish mind from wandering too far away from her task. It’s early in the morning, and everyone else is close to waking. She has to get her day’s due of libations before anyone notices she’s slipping under Vriska’s radar. 

“Can’t keep a good girl down,” Rose sings under her breath to the monitor as she clicks on a fruit that looks a bit like a spiked club. “Can’t sink a girl who’s doomed to drown.” 

Vriska had only recently been watching Rose’s intake a little too closely for comfort. A few days ago, after the Scorpio had thrown a cup of red wine to the floor and berated Rose in front of everyone for standing up Kanaya, she had taken it upon herself to personally order Gamzee to eject the rest of Rose’s stash off the speeding asteroid. There had been something poetically tragic about the clown dropping the crates of bottles off the side. Rose had leaned into Dave’s and Kanaya’s sides for support as she watched the wine and other spirits collide and burst: small, watery red fireworks commemorating the beginning of her journey to sobriety. The distinct sound of shattering glass echoed up the grey rock, audible though growing less so by the minute. Rose felt nothing but exhaustion. This job done, Vriska declared a ban on booze and frequently rode Rose’s back ensuring she remained sober. The seer had half-heartedly resisted, poking fun at Vriska’s determination while submitting to surprise room checks. Really, Rose had no legitimate cause to be angry or demand Vriska lay off. Surely, she should be glad that someone was looking out for her health. But, no matter how she tried to justify it to herself, she couldn’t tamp down a seed of resentment. Two years she had been drinking. And for two years no one had said anything. Now suddenly here was this self-righteous troll meddling in her affairs. Even Kanaya hadn’t so much as suggested she go cold turkey! Why was Vriska acting like such a goddamn mom. 

“Trolls don’t have moms,” Rose says aloud, her eyes roving the screen, searching for vinegar. “She can’t be what she doesn’t know.”  

However, like a mom, Vriska is woefully uninformed about Rose’s real habits. After a couple of years emptying out her mother’s unsurprisingly expansive liquor collection, Rose has had to get a bit creative when her throat’s itching for another drop of sweet alcohol. Before Vriska had even sought to confiscate the seer’s supply, Rose had modified an old alchemiter to accept keystroke demands instead of cruxite dowels. She combined items from a grocery app Sollux had installed on the computer attached to the side of the machine, and forced the scanner to read the barcodes generated by whatever delightful mixture she came up with. It was a fun time-waster when she was bored, and a hobby she had become semi-skilled at in the past few months when her stockpile had visibly begun to dwindle. 

“And, there.” Rose smiles as she finalizes the contents of her next bottle. “Ten years ought to age it nicely,” she mumbles, setting the amount of time on a digital dial, an app extension she had developed using Dave’s input. They had originally wanted to age and de-age a Twinkie, to test the myth that its creamy filling would transform into a liqueur in ten or twenty years. It hadn’t worked, but they had spent a fun day daring people (and each other) to eat a whole host of fifty year old cakes. Eventually, when their backs were turned, Gamzee had snuck off with one. They heard him getting sick later and concluded that their experiment had been a resounding success.

The alchemiter warms up, groaning, and Rose swivels in her chair to watch the scanner arm descend upon the barcode. She runs her tongue over her lips and tries to imagine the taste of the citrusy blend she is about to imbibe. She leans back, stretching, thinking about what else she wants to do today, now that her alcohol rations are squared away —knitting could be something to busy her mind, she might work on her writing, or… ask Dave if he wants to watch a movie with her. He had been doing that a lot lately with Karkat. She hadn’t really wanted to pry into their movie nights, but she suspects Dave is bulking up on his cinematic knowledge so that he can have a good discussion about films with John when they meet in a year or so. And perhaps he wants some excuse to become friendlier with Karkat —they aren’t fighting as much anymore, something which had characterized their relationship for a good chunk of time. They are nicer to each other, now. Rose kind of wants to know why. 

Not that she would crash their movie sessions. She wouldn’t do something like that, like _Vriska_ , sneak up on them and spy. No. Instead of being a spider on the wall, she would casually suggest they all enjoy a two and a half hour time-sinker on the boob tube. Rose tries to imagine the setting while the alchemiter works on spawning her wine. 

The asteroid is equipped with a rather spacious tv room. A plush leather couch, soft blankets and cushions, a small fridge conveniently within arm’s reach, and a gigantic television makes it easy to spend half a day rotting one’s think-pan with brainless rom coms and other assorted popcorn flicks. The lights are already dim (they’re always low anyway), and more than once she stumbles on a stray floor cushion as she meanders over to the prime seating. She would plop down in the middle of the two boys, snacks abundant on her lap, and the absurdly loud THX logo would blare onscreen, assaulting their eyes and ears. Karkat would complain loudly. Rose grins at the thought. She would tell him to shut up, THX was commanding their respect and testing their mettle. She and Dave would laugh as Karkat tells her to fuck off, and speculates that many humans are probably deaf because of THX. Then they would settle in and watch the opening scene. 

But Rose would be more cognizant of just how close her knee is to Dave’s. Not that they haven’t come into contact before, her knee and Dave’s knee, but they haven’t been exposed to prolonged touching. She gently knocks her patella against his. Would he notice? Yeah, but he would pretend not to. Or maybe he would twitch, but let it be. Rose would be emboldened by his passivity, and line up their legs slowly, so that from ankle to thigh their bodies would be lightly brushing. Dave would be aware the entire time. He would think that Rose was playing a game; a game of chicken. The first one to move back loses. She would expect him to shy away from her as soon as she did something more daring, but he would tell himself to watch and wait. There was no way she would go so far that _he_ couldn’t handle it. 

Karkat doesn’t notice that the two siblings are silently tossing the dice in a dangerous gamble. Rose is the initiator, the one who is allowed to inch her hand up her brother’s arm while the back of his neck prickles. A large fluffy blanket Rose places over the three of them ensures that any move she makes cannot be predicted by the knight or seen by the troll. She is cautious, she is slow. She can read Dave’s face at a glance, can see the sweat beading his temples, and catches the swallow he attempts to hide by ducking his chin. Her hand glides down his side and passes over his abdomen, palm on the comfortable fabric separating his skin from hers. He would likely jump if her fingers found their way underneath his shirt, disrupting and ending their game. So she doesn’t bother to transgress that boundary. But she can sense his excitement as her digits walk over his stomach, lower and higher, up towards his chest and down towards his thigh. His breathing quickens subtly, and he tries to mask it. She holds hers in check. Their shoulders connect their collarbones, and they keep their eyes on the movie. In a few minutes, Rose’s right hand disappears from Dave’s body. It is moving underneath the blanket, but he cannot feel it. He waits, relieved by the cooling down period. Rose leans her head on his shoulder, and he accepts with a brief puff of annoyance. Karkat glances their way, suspicious, but the movie recaptures his attention. 

Rose’s hand is still in motion, searching for a target. She has already skimmed most of Dave’s body that she could without alerting Karkat or alarming her brother. Maybe it is time to end this play… or maybe Dave will end up surprising her. Could he tolerate, for instance, a delicate tap on his groin? Rose’s mind immediately floods with warnings, and implications. What is she thinking, harassing him like that? He probably doesn’t expect her to push it _that_ far. That would be out of bounds. Against the rules. And yes, there are rules she has to obey, unspoken though they are. But… has she incorrectly sensed some tension between the two of them whenever they entertain one another with these slightly naughty games? And those little touches on the arm when they sit next to each other for mealtimes, or Dave playfully kicking her under the table when they discuss his latest ill jams, and him helping her into bed on at least one occasion when she had drunk too much? 

Her legs are beginning to fall asleep. Rose blinks, coming back to herself. She is tucked away in a tiny lab with her alchemiter, not feeling up Dave in the tv room. The scenario she’s enjoying in her mind’s eye is getting out of control. She really has an overactive imagination! Probably comes from spending one too many days loafing about, without anything new to stimulate herself. She looks at the pad where her wine should be. There’s nothing there. Rose rolls her eyes and slumps back in her chair. Her throat is parched, but she can wait. It’s not as if she’s straining at the bit for a bottle. Just a few more minutes. She could go back to thinking about her plans for today. Ah, yes, movie night, or, er, movie day. Best not to travel too far down the avenue of her previous musings —what about the actual film she wants to see?

Maybe Iron Man or something. For some reason the lead actor really appeals to her. Snarky, sharply-dressed, genius Tony Stark. A man after her own talents. And didn’t Jade have an outfit modeled after the Iron Man suit? Iron…Lass, Rose thinks. Oh. Jade. What was she up to right now? Vriska had promised that they’d all meet up in a year. How were Jade, John, and Davesprite doing? Rose had asked. The Scorpio had forbidden anyone else from using Aradia’s music box time machine, so Rose hadn’t been able to visit them herself. Vriska had waved the seer’s questions aside. They’re fine, she had said, turning away. Rose had not missed the slight crease in her brow, the way she bit her lip with a finely-pointed fang. But Rose had not pressed the matter, had not wished to draw Vriska’s annoyance and potential ire. Since that update, though, it worried her, and a foreboding feeling pulsed in the back of her mind, wondering about her far-flung friends. Booze helped cool any fears, rational or irrational, that sprung from the misty void. Without it, tendrils of doubt and dread wove their way through her grey matter, seizing and feasting upon magnified anxieties she didn’t dare speak of to her friends. A word of disquiet might give rise to waves of discomfort, to an ocean of distress. She knew they all thought of Jade, John, and Davesprite occasionally. In the dreambubbles she longed for their presence, sometimes spending a few nights at her computer reliving old pesterlogs. She could not generate new ones. They should have had the foresight to ask Sollux to build a super computer or something that would allow them all to communicate throughout the three years they would be traveling. It was stressful when she thought about it too much. She didn’t want to have to think at all, sometimes. What was she doing? Why was she here? Why did she have to wait so long for anything to happen? Why why why why why why—  

A dim pop brings Rose back to her present surroundings. How long has she been trapped in a trance, thinking about the three people whom she’d give anything to know if they are truly safe? At least ten minutes, by the computer’s clock. It is almost 7:30 AM. The sparkling wine had finally materialized on the alchemiter’s pad. It was taking longer and longer for it to make items, since it had been modified by more wacky apps that probably weren’t technologically sound. She should perform a maintenance update soon, but right now she has to get back to her room before someone calls her for breakfast. 

Rose gets up from her chair, careful to push it back into place without causing it to squeak. Sounds could travel fast and far in this labyrinthine burrow she calls home. More than once Vriska has somehow shown up out of thin air when she least expected it. The Scorpio’s creepy ‘Big Brother’ posturing made it all the more difficult to actually get anything done, illicit or otherwise. The damn thief couldn’t have bugged all of the rooms, or Rose’s clothing (as a god-tier she had an infinite wardrobe), so what all-seeing eye did Vriska possess? This might be a riddle to sort out today… but first. 

The wine bottle is long and thin, a pretty opaque lilac color that suits Rose’s aesthetic. She walks over to the alchemiter’s pad and grips it by its neck, lifting it high into the air. Its body haloes against the single bare bulb illuminating the lab. The slight sloshing inside indicate that it’s full to the brim, and Rose can just make out a liquid line wavering underneath the cork. 

“True beauty,” the seer breathes, “measured by the mind of a girl who craves that which is slowly depleting the reserves of her mind. A toxic beauty, created to destroy. Relaxes her so much that she won’t ever wake again. God, what a fucking poet I am.”

In that moment Rose wants to break the bottle against something; the alchemiter that brought it into being, the computer that allowed her to precisely plot out the toxicity of her undoing, or her very own head, for thinking up such useless seduction. A seduction that subdues her in every possible way, a courtship destined to fail. She is falling for a version of herself that is not meant to exist, a natural bastard; a drooping Rose who idles her hours away, doing nothing of value. It’s easy. It’s so fucking easy. Leave everything to Vriska, let her have her irons in the fire while Rose pushes her own priorities to the back burner. Who cares what she accomplishes, or doesn’t accomplish, now. It’s not as if she has a plan. 

“I do not.” Rose lowers her hand, the light bottle hitting her thigh. “And that’s why I can drink.” 

It isn’t about connecting with her mother anymore.

Trolls have sensitive noses, so it would be better for her to go back to her room to have a nip, or the whole thing, and be able to take a shower and brush her teeth before breakfast. Vriska always insists they eat together, some sort of camaraderie or moral boosting every day. It is nice, but at the same time she knows it’s another excuse for the big boss to breathe down their necks. Still, Dave could usually make her smile, and divert some of the negative attention away from the “weaker” members of the group. 

The lab door slides open noiselessly, and Rose peeks out, looks left and right twice, and steps into the hallway. Her hands are empty, the wine safely tucked inside her sylladex. If she bumps into anyone, she can say that she had just been on her way back to her room after looking for more notebooks to write some fic in. She has some paper in her sylladex, so it’s a solid alibi. 

Her room’s not too far off, just a couple of corridors and three staircases up and she’s home free. Her throat is dry. She licks her lips, confirming that they’re chapped to hell. She should probably stop off in the kitchen to get some cold water. Alcohol is a diuretic, and though her tolerance level is high, it’s a good idea to stay hydrated. 

As she’s debating whether she should take the transportalizer down to the kitchen, there’s a small disturbance overhead. Some sort of scuffling noise. Rose immediately looks upward, not exactly alarmed, but prepared to bolt if she senses something out of place. 

Nothing. The ceiling looks the same as always; a metallic grey with an air vent off to the side. It’s pretty much the same everywhere. Completely drab but befitting of such a boring environment. 

Rose keeps walking. There’s a staircase that leads to a kitchenette that might be supplied with water jugs, though really, everyone hasn’t been keeping up with stocking the various rooms all around the asteroid. People have their favorite haunts and they usually keep to them, relocating stuff from here and there until the rooms they don’t use are devoid of all useful things. Still, it’s worth a shot to check the kitchenettes so that she doesn’t have to go down to the big kitchen. Who knows who might already be cooking in there. Vriska usually puts Gamzee on kitchen duty, and while he’s a decent chef Rose doesn’t particularly relish the thought of spending a few minutes alone with him while the rest of the group takes their sweet time getting up. Then again, Dave or Kanaya could be there already… ah, but if she takes time to talk with them, she won’t have her morning wine. 

“Gosh I have to deal with such important matters today,” Rose remarks to no one in particular, a sneer curling her lips. “A seer’s job is never done. The kitchenette it is, though.” 

A loud bang from overhead nearly stops her heart, and she about snaps her neck as her head whips around, needles in both hands that leapt straight from her sylladex. The sound seemed to come from the air vents. Well hot damn, she can fly, can’t she? The ducts are twenty feet off the ground, but she has flown higher than that. Quickly, perhaps not gracefully, she’s in the air, zooming towards a section of the ducts that has slots in it for her to peer through. What she sees confuses her. It’s the rubber sole of a very large shoe. 

“H-hey,” she stammers, “What—”

Did someone throw a shoe into the air vents? What kind of dumb experiment is this? Probably Dave’s bright idea. Well, she might as well take it out. Can’t have it stinking up the whole asteroid. Ah, so that was the trick. Something to make them all bicker. A fucked up version of a “treasure hunt” of some sort. What a stupid prank, to send them all on a play mission to find a bomb. She could come up with better games while drunk. And she just might, if she ever makes it back to her bed. 

“Goddammit Strider,” Rose mutters, and she sticks the pointy end of her needle straight into the heel. 

There’s a brief, low, but unmistakable honk. 

Oh. 

Rose frowns, a drop of guilt and and burgeoning questions replacing her confusion and annoyance. “Gamzee?” she says slowly, drawing out her needle from the shoe’s heel. Half an inch of it is glistening with indigo blood. There’s a quick inhale from both parties. 

“Oh my god. I’m so sorry.” Rose flies a few feet down the duct, where she thinks his head is. “Can you hear me? I apologize, I did not know you were— I thought it was a prank of some kind, so I was attempting to dislodge it from the ducts. Are you all right?” 

There’s no answer, but she can hear him twisting around, probably trying to reach his foot. Dull clunks echo throughout the hallway. 

Rose continues to hover in place, feeling a bit like a fool and a lot like a lousy friend. She should at least stay for a few minutes, right? To make sure she didn’t injure him too badly. Trolls were made of tough stuff, but he could probably use some antiseptic and a bandaid. 

“How did you even get in there?” And the most prominent question, which she is already 99% sure she knows the answer to, “Why are you in there in the first place? You—you haven’t been watching me, have you?” 

There’s a pause as he lies motionless inside the duct. Then a mad shuffling, scraping clamor erupts and Rose understands that he’s making a break for it. She does not want to follow him. 

Rose returns to the ground and listens absent-mindedly as Gamzee moves further along the air vents. After twenty seconds or so it sounds as though he makes a right turn and is crawling deeper into the bowels of the asteroid’s ventilation system. His path right now should take him back to his own room. 

“Well, this is information I may put to good use,” she says aloud. “Either Vriska’s forcing him to do this for her Big Brother modus operandi, or, and I cannot believe I think this is the more despicable notion, he’s doing it to… get his jollies or whatever shit clown vernacular Juggalos spew.” 

Rose shudders. What kind of life did she lead if a wannabe troll on hoofbeastback is preferable to a concupiscent stripling? “It’s really about time to ride the bubbly waters of the rotgut wave,” she murmurs to herself. 

With Gamzee no longer following her, there is a less than zero percent chance she will be caught boozing if she starts drinking right here in this hallway. Not that it is a remote location, but she doubts anyone will wander through here on their way to breakfast. 

Rose walks over to the wall that supports the air vents and chooses a random spot to sit. She makes short work of the cork, stabbing one of her needles through it and pulling it out with a faint, satisfying popping sound. The aroma that spirals out of the neck smells sweet, citrusy, with a cloying undertone of blood. That steak she put in on a whim would add to rather than ruin the taste, she hopes. Even if it doesn’t, she will drink it anyway. Someone would notice if she made more than one or two bottles a day; she is careful about taking from the remaining grist pile. It’s an incredibly stupid game mechanic that they have to continue using grist and convert it into items like food and paper and other necessary objects. Vriska goes out to get more grist once a week, and she keeps careful tabs on their resources. 

Rose tips the bottle back, and the cool fluid runs down her throat. The aftertaste is salty, but the second sip rewards her tongue with fizzy tartness. “I’m going to confront her about this spying business, if that bard really is spying for her. Jesus, what a huge bitch. What the fuck, I need more blackmail than that to make her back down. She’ll dismiss everything I say if I’ve only got Gamzee on the hook. We can’t continue to allow her complete control over everything in our lives.”

She swallows more than she means to, and sputters. Some of it splashes on the concrete floor. She wipes it up with the front of her dress, not caring that it might leave a stain. 

“Bluh, bluh, huge—” And that’s when, out of the corner of her eye, she perceives, or rather senses, a flash of orange light right at the bend of the corridor. 

This time she doesn’t waste a single second on battle-tested reflexes. Her needles are in her hands, her bottle jumps into her sylladex, and she’s flying around the corner as quick as a wink, weapons raised at shoulder height. When she’s clear of the curve and has her would-be spy in view, however, instead of a command to halt or a needle to the eye, she gasps.

Rose stands completely still. Her vision is a little bit blurred around the edges from the high alcohol content of the booze she just ingested. She blinks a few times, lowers her arms, and takes a deep breath. There, not five feet away, is a feathery orange asshole. Someone she’d never seen in person, but whom she knew existed and cared about. There is only one question blaring in her mind right now.

“Hi.” The feathery orange asshole clears his throat and slowly rotates around to face her. He raises his right hand. He does not wave it. “‘Sup Rose.”

She does not say anything. Her needles vanish, returning to her sylladex, and all of a sudden she wants to laugh. Not a smattering of giggles, no; a great big barking laugh that would make Jade proud.Instead, she hangs her head. Her shoulders slump forward in a way that makes her back ache. 

“Uh, so, do you wanna… sit down, maybe?” He’s floating towards her, gently, hesitantly. From under her fringe of bangs she can see his oddly glowing arm reaching out, then pulling back a bit when she doesn’t look up. 

“Davesprite.” Her mouth moves, but she can barely hear herself speak his name. 

Somehow, he catches the word. “Yeah. That’s me.” She can hear a small smile in his voice. His tone is softer than Dave’s. She doesn’t notice a pitch difference, but it’s definitely softer. 

“Heh,” she breathes, and she feels a light touch on her shoulder. For a split second she considers slapping his hand away, but chooses to allow it to remain. This can’t be another of Vriska’s ploys. Sending fucking Davesprite to spy on her when she didn’t even know he was here, that would be such a low blow even the Scorpio wouldn’t put it into play. She might not let her cards bleed, but she was enough of a braggart to gloat about her deck. If this feathery asshole was Vriska’s pawn, Rose might just make another pact with the horrorterrors to go grimdark on her ass. 

“Let’s go with your suggestion and take a seat somewhere.” Rose raises her head incrementally to meet Davesprite’s eyes, but of course he’s wearing the goddamn Stiller shades. Nevertheless, she thinks she can read his expression. It’s kind. 

She directs Davesprite to her room, but when he realizes it _is_ her room he’s a bit reluctant to float inside. “Can’t we go to a video game arcade or something? I know you guys must have one or two of those, our spaceship did.” 

“No.” Rose pulls him inside by the wrist, half-amused by his ruffled demeanor. He glides over the threshold with a modicum of resistance, and the door slides shut behind him. “This way we’ll have some privacy. No one knows the combination to my room.” 

Davesprite seems slightly perturbed by this. He plays it off coolly, though. Real smooth. “Okay, yeah, I can go with that. So, uh, I guess you wanna rap about… why I’m here.” 

Straight to the point. Rose is impressed and pleased, and smiles genuinely, without teeth. “Oh yes, I’m incredibly interested about that particular topic. Tell me everything within reason. And don’t stall or go off on a tangent. I’m in a bit of a mood this morning and you do not want to derail my current pleasant facade.” 

She sits on the edge of her bed and crosses one leg over the other. Davesprite hovers in place, his tail curling underneath him as he makes himself comfortable in midair. As he’s adjusting himself, Rose takes the opportunity to surreptitiously observe him. 

He looks much younger than the Dave she sees everyday. Not just in his face, which is rounder; nor his torso, which hasn’t lengthened and filled out into a flat, hard stomach and semi-defined pectorals. Never mind how she knows what is under Dave’s clothes! Still, Rose cannot keep from biting her lip as she compares the two in her mind’s eye. Davesprite isn’t wearing a shirt, so it’s easy to picture the body he could have, if he could ever age. Oh goodness, how could she already be thinking about those sorts of things? Besides, she has a perfectly fine, age-appropriate Dave sleeping a few rooms down the hall. 

It’s something about the way Davesprite moves— fluidly, but awkwardly, his incredibly long tail settling and resettling, twitching minutely without provocation, the feathers on his wings slightly puffed— that paints him as a fledgling Dave of sorts. She can tell he’s highly aware of every move he’s making, and it’s funny how easily she can read him. He’s being careful not to glance around her room too much, and restraining himself from picking at the bandages around his waist. The Dave she knows is a little more guarded, a little more restless. This talk should prove a great distraction before she busies herself with how to deal with Vriska. 

“So,” Rose begins, lacing her fingers in her lap, “You’re here. I assume you don’t need to start with anything else more complicated than how you joined us on our little journey to the End Game.” 

It’s hard to tell if he’s looking at her or at a point behind her. His shades, while orange, are just as or perhaps even more impenetrable than Dave’s black ones. He takes a shallow breath. “Nice to see you too, Rose.” 

“My apologies, I thought that since I’m sort of short on time here, and in the process of knitting together a delicate proposal to punish a certain spider bitch, I’d just get down to brass tacks. It’s great to finally meet you. Would you like to engage in a ceremonial greeting humans perform when they are overcome with happy emotions upon reuniting with a familiar face?” 

Davesprite stares at her with a blank look that could bore through sheet rock. She does not even attempt to hold back her grin. 

“Shall we hug, or brofist, or some other such contact?” 

She thinks he’s rolling his eyes, but then he shrugs and crosses his arms in a nonchalant manner. In a quiet voice with his head tipped slightly to the side, he says, “I-if you want to…?” 

Oh. Her grin fades to a small smile. She’s a little taken aback, but at the same time she’s happy that her semi-sarcastic offer was accepted. The Dave she knows is not as prone to casual physical touching. Rose has wondered why a few times, and has tried to establish a pattern of that type of affection between them, but either he hadn’t caught on to it yet or he didn’t want to reciprocate for some obscure reason. And if the latter was the case… well, she may find it rewarding to psychoanalyze anyone’s actions, especially Dave’s, but she had a feeling that her diagnosis of that particular condition would leave her with more negative garbage to sift through. She had her own problems to solve at the moment. 

Rose rises from her spot on the bed and lifts herself a foot or two off the ground, so that they can hug or high-five or whatever without Davesprite having to stoop too much. He is easily over seven feet tall even in a “sitting” position, and she calculates that his tail accounts for the majority of his length. It also seems that it is not a fixed section of his body, but he can probably control the span by will. 

She makes the first move when they’re properly facing each other, and holds both of her arms open, encouraging a hug. His face remains passive, but his arms uncross and he drifts towards her incrementally. He’s hesitant, but she’s warm, and she closes the gap between them. Rose doesn’t want to be too forward, so she places her arms around his upper chest, and her face to the side of his face. After a few seconds she can feel his hands around her middle back, then slipping lower to settle on her waist. It’s kind of bold, for a guy who seemed at least a little nervous before. They remain this way for about a minute, until Davesprite turns his head and she can distinctly hear a sniff as he breathes in the scent of her hair. 

The seer is not repulsed, but she had not seen that coming. Rose lets him go immediately, dropping back onto her bed. Davesprite stays where he is, and looks appropriately mortified. 

“Please don’t do that,” the girl mutters, running her fingers through the section of her hair the boy had mussed. 

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He’s floating further away from the bed, tail squirming, feathers ruffled. A light orange hue is flooding his face, coloring his embarrassment and youth. “Should I leave?” Again she’s struck with the thought that he’s so much _younger_ than Dave, though not necessarily in a physical sense. He’s younger, but he has a better sense of people’s boundaries. More open to listening. 

More emotional.

More vulnerable.

Rose can’t bring herself to kick him out. She still needs to know why and how he’s here. And… she’s bizarrely flattered by his brief interest in her hair. 

“Don’t go. Just, stay over there. Jeez.”

When she’s finished fixing her hair, she looks up at him. Davesprite’s rather distant now, back pressed against the far wall. His head is down and one of his arms is holding onto the opposite arm’s elbow. His tail is limp and seems shorter somehow. The body language recalls a naughty boy properly scolded, sent to his corner. And Rose feels a sharp pinch in her gut that shrieks she’s being a mom. She does not want to be a mom. 

Rose clears her throat, and Davesprite raises his chin, though he is definitely focusing on a lamp on the bedside table instead of her. 

“You can come closer than that. Um. In fact, would you prefer to sit next to me? We can… be on the same level with each other.” 

There’s a minuscule crease in his brow that indicates he’s close to frowning. “But— you just told me to stay over here. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable again.” 

“I wasn’t…” Rose pauses, allowing a gleeful replay of his words to reverberate in her brain. Davesprite’s basic human (bird-human?) decency is so much more pronounced than she knows Dave’s to be. Not that she’d ever been in a situation with Dave that amounted to sexual teasing and denial (or had she??), but she is sure he wouldn’t have quickly backed off if she’d asked him to, and also placed her comfort above his sex drive. Maybe it’s _because_ Rose has never been in a similar situation to this, or because comparatively (why comparatively???) Dave would act differently, but she is tickled by Davesprite’s response so much that she can’t quite stifle a giggle.

The boy’s eyebrows rise above his shades, then settle, and he crosses his arms again. “What?” 

“No, nothing.” She’s smiling now, a small one to be sure, but a smile nonetheless. “I think I overreacted. Come over here, please. Only if you want to, though. I also do not wish to cause you any discomfort.” 

“Okay.” Now he’s relaxing; not all the way, but it’s a start, and he glides over to the bed. He’s incredibly tall, and Rose cranes her neck to look into his eyes, which she can just barely make out behind his shades. They’re… orange, sclera and all. Of course. 

“Would you like to sit down? My neck will begin to ache if we talk like this.” 

Davesprite glances at the space she pats beside her. He refolds his wings over his back. “I can’t really sit, though. I mean, I don’t have a pelvis or a lap, not like a human. Not like…” 

He trails off when he notices her smirk. She’s pretty sure her eyes are twinkling, too. 

“Did you just say you don’t have a pelvis?” 

 “Um…”

Rose’s smirk stretches. She’s half-tempted to grab his hips, or where his hips would be if he had any. But she pushes aside that train of thought. Maybe later she would attempt to unpack her reaction to Davesprite’s nonexistent pelvis. Instead she hand waves the awkward air away. “That’s fine. Maybe you could just lower yourself so that you can hover eye to eye with me?”

“Yeah sure.” 

He does, and it’s almost as if they’re sitting across from each other. Rose leans back on her hands and lifts one knee over the other, crossing her legs as Davesprite crosses his arms. They both seem to be performing closed body language indicators, but she knows enough about Dave that she assumes she’ll be able to tell what Davesprite is thinking. Despite the differences he’s already demonstrated, and the different lives they’ve been leading in the past two or so years, they have the same fundamental foundation: the same DNA, the same 13 years lived before SBURB pulled them into a shitfest of tangled timelines and dead selves, traumatic battles and heady power at the tips of their fingers. There’s no way they’re so dissimilar to each other now that one’s more real than the other, or that the counterpart from a beta timeline is inferior to the Dave who’s lucky enough to be in the alpha universe. Rose has seen an entire graveyard of dead Daves. The Dave she knows has seen them too, but he pretends that they are not him. All of them were bloody, battle-worn and bruised inside and out, immature assholes. When they died they felt the same pain, the same bone-deep grief, as they would when the next one coughed up blood. At least, that’s what Rose thought. 

If dead Daves were the enemy, what did that make Davesprite? Some doomed copy lucky enough to get a second chance, combined with an animal totem that drove his id? He is alive, but he is not wholly Dave. His skin is fucking phosphorescent orange, for god’s sake. So Rose is wrong. She won’t be able to judge him based on the Dave she knows. But she may in time adapt Davesprite’s behavior to a pattern she’s well versed on. And then she’ll be able to stop comparing one to the other. And maybe she’ll help Davesprite recognize that he’s not functioning as the leech to a major player. 

Killing your double isn’t only sound advice to preserve yourself; it’s a cosmic contract, an irrefutable obligation that’s fulfilled as often as a watch’s gears notch to turn the second hand of time. If Davesprite existed solely as a copy, an inferior beta, he’d long be dead. 

“Please,” Rose says, “Tell me your tale.” 

“Sure, if you want to hear it straight from the bird’s mouth instead of the spider’s. Well, first of all, and don’t be too choked up by this, but John’s dead.” 

Her breath catches in her throat, and she’s frozen. No doubt her expression has changed from a flirty grin to a stony face of horror. “What?” 

“Yeah, and Jade’s kinda stuck on a boat shooting across the heavens to meet up with your meteor party.” 

Rose cannot find the means to collect herself. She’s gripping the bedspread so hard her knuckles are turning white. “How—how are you so calm about this?” Already tears are collecting in her eyes, and she does not care if they spill over the edge. 

Davesprite raises his palms in a placating manner, shrugging at the same time. “I’m not. But I know that it’s going to be okay. A John from another timeline will come over. He’s pretty much exactly the same as the other John, except he didn’t make a deal with Typheus, and his planet didn’t explode—”

“Wait, slow down.” Rose places a hand on his chest, then thinks better of that and moves it to his shoulder. He glances at her hand from the corner of his eye, supporting the coolness of her palm.

 “I’ve explained all of this already to Vriska, and I thought she told you guys? But I guess she hasn’t called for a strategy meeting yet or something?” 

This is too much too fast, and Rose’s arm flops back into her lap before she places her head in her hands. “What is going on?” she whispers to herself. “I need a drink.” 

“Oooookay. I don’t think I should say anything else, then. Uh, do you want me to get you some water? That’s the kind of drink you meant, right?” 

The wine bottle is in her grasp with the slightest pull from her sylladex, and the cork’s off already, so she takes a huge swig. Due to her overenthusiastic gulping, a trickle goes down the wrong tube and she begins coughing. Her body feels heavy and she falls back onto the bed, legs hanging off over the side.  

“Whoa, whoa, take it easy Lalonde!” Davesprite is over her in a flash, concerned face a foot above, and his body exactly in line with hers, but he doesn’t attempt to remove the bottle. “It’s nothing to be that upset about! The alpha John is on his way, and he’ll be able to join the rest of you in this session— you, Jade, and the real Dave. ” 

Her coughing fit subsiding, she realizes what he’s just said. “The real Dave?” she repeats, harsher than she intended. She wants to sit up but doesn’t fancy knocking her hard forehead into his. Instead she glares straight through him. 

“Dave. The alpha Dave, the one who’s alive right now.” He’s biting his lip, pushing sweaty strands of hair off of her cheeks. One brush of his fingers almost feels like a caress. “You okay?” 

The pads of his fingers are warm, but it’s a bit disconcerting that something so powerfully orange is in her line of sight. Her eyes are starting to hurt just from the glow. She closes them, takes a few deep breaths, and allows him to continue grooming her, even though she’s certain it’s not necessary. He’s moved on from tucking hairs back into place. Now he’s fussing with her headband. 

“No. I don’t think I’m okay. This news is very unwelcome. I’m going to have to confront the thief sooner rather than later. She can’t keep doing this.” 

“Doing what?” 

“She may think she’s leading us, but leaders don’t keep pertinent information from their followers, if that’s what we are. No, actually, we’re supposed to be a team. This hierarchical gap is too cavernous. It’s unstable, and apparently widening every day. I don’t know how this happened.” 

When Rose opens her eyes, she’s momentarily blinded by the amount of orange. Davesprite’s shades are mere inches above her gaze. 

“So what are you going to do?” 

She’s startled by the question, and involuntarily jumps when she feels a light weight settling down on her chest. Something hot approaching scalding curls around her legs. 

“Davesprite, what the fuck.” 

Instantly, he’s a foot above her again, worry on his brow, arms hugging his sides. “O-oh. Goddammit. Sorry, I—” 

Now she’s sitting up, examining her ankle, where she had felt the tip of his tail the most. A tiny patch of skin is a little shiny and pink. Rose is furious. 

“What the fuck!” she exclaims, snapping at him, reaching for his tail, which eludes her clutches as he wraps it around his body. “I told you not to do that!” 

He looks like he’s about to cry. Sure sounds like it. His voice is thick with emotion as he grinds out, “I’m really sorry! Okay, I just, fuck, you won’t understand…” 

“What won’t I understand!” She’s still mad, but she’s calming down, watching the thick pink bands around her legs lighten. 

Davesprite is floating above her bed, hands wringing his tail like he’s throttling it. His wings are extended, even the one that’s been torn 2/3 of the way off. He is huge and he’s towering over her. “You smell like you’re ovulating. It’s sorta distracting… my animalistic instincts are going kind of berserk, but I know I can’t just jump on you and start going at it. Besides the fact that you’re my sister, I’m not a goddamn rapist. I had this reaction with Jade too, but she…liked it, probably because of her weird doggy habits.”

Rose can’t believe what she’s hearing. “What.” 

“I know it’s fucking disgusting, so, I guess I’ll leave now. Hit me up later, okay? And please don’t be too mad. I’m really trying, here.” He’s sailing over to the door and is about to open it when Rose calls out to him. 

“Wait, please don’t go. I need to know— I need some more details. I can’t wait until my period starts, I need to know now. I can’t wait for three days.” 

His hand is on the door, back to her, but he doesn’t slide the panel open. “Two.” 

 She shoots him a look that he doesn’t see. “Two?”

“Yeah. Should be. Two and a half, maybe.” He’s slowly rotating around, rocking back and forth on his tail, hands still on the panel. “I could take care of that, though.” 

Silence falls, heavier and quieter than anything before. Rose stares at Davesprite with mouth agape, eyebrows drawn together in agonized astonishment. He realizes what he’s said two seconds after the sentence leaves his mouth, and he slumps down on the floor, curling into a little ball. The seer tries not to notice an angry light orange flush spreading from the boy’s chest to the tips of his ears. Poor guy just stuffed his entire tail into his mouth, for lack of a foot. 

They both take a few minutes to collect themselves. 

“Oh my fucking god,” Rose stage-whispers. “I don’t even think the real Dave has that kind of audacity.” 

Davesprite moans. 

“I’m going to take some precautions, if that’s all right with you. I think you’ve proven you’re not exactly capable of keeping your more beastly proclivities in check. And as much as it pains me to say, I’d much rather go through a week of bleeding out of my vagina than the alternative.” 

Thankfully, Davesprite nods his assent. 

“Okay. Let’s see…” 

Rose takes a minute to assess what she could use to keep the boy’s intentions at bay. Her eyes alight on a rather long scarf Kanaya had sown for her. It’s made out of a thin but sturdy stretchy material, and can probably do in a pinch. If he tore through it (unlikely but better to be prepared), it would hold him long enough for her to escape out the door. Not that she couldn’t take him in a fight, but she’d rather not injure him if possible. Jesus, she better make her interrogation fast. 

She picks up the silky material, and looks for a good anchor spot. She can’t just tie him up without making sure one of the ends is attached to an immovable object. Rose looks at her fourposter bed. The poles holding up the canopy should be okay, at least for a few minutes. It’s not as if the bed is bolted to the floor or anything, but the frame’s made out of solid mahogany and it’s pretty heavy. Davesprite’s not a godtier, so he would have to struggle with it if he wanted to get free. Again, she would have time to flee should she recognize that he’s beginning to lose control. 

“Here’s the deal,” Rose says, walking over to Davesprite’s small form on the floor. “Can you get up?” 

He raises his head and floats upwards to his standard height, slowly. He’s trying not to make any sudden movements, Rose realizes. He doesn’t want to freak me out. Well, to freak me out any more than he already _has_.  

“Good. All right, now turn around. I’m going to tie your hands behind your back, to your tail, around your wings, neck, chest, and waist, and then to my bed. I mean, to one of the wooden poles on my bed. Let me know if it hurts, but I’m going to make sure there’s no slack, okay?”

 Davesprite complies easily, not saying a word (though it would be hilarious and completely in character for him to insinuate that his sister has a bondage fetish, given her quick and efficient work), and Rose proceeds to tie him, checking her knots at every juncture. When she’s finished, she leads him over to her bed and secures the end of the scarf to a post. 

He’s trembling, but she ignores this, though not without a prick of sympathy. “Would it help if I covered your nose with something?” 

“I don’t think so,” he says weakly. “That might actually make it worse.” 

Rose doesn’t have time to question that logic. She’s keenly aware of the slight sheen of sweat dampening Davesprite’s chest. He must be trying so hard, and she’s proud of him for that, but at the same time it’s unnerving. Time to get down to business. 

“You never answered my question about how you came over here. I assume Vriska had a claw in it?” 

Davesprite hangs his head, and his shoulders slump. “Yeah. She just popped out of nowhere the day John and I went down to LOWAS, told me to stay with her while John went to see his denizen. She made him give her the Spirograph pendant before he flew off to play windwaker of the opera.” 

“The Spirograph pendant?” Rose takes a few steps closer to Davesprite. This is a bit of a mistake, but he’s speaking so quietly it’s hard to hear him.  

“Yeah. It’s like a portable house for me, I guess? Sort of like a pokeball. And in that analogy, I am the pokemon, it is me.” The boy breathes out, rolls his shoulders. The purple scarf against his hot orange skin resembles a long, snaky bruise. It will leave a few marks when it’s removed, later. 

Rose notices that the scarf is beginning to cut into his waist, and feels a blip of guilt even though she knows he could be dangerous if he isn’t tied back. Cautiously, she reaches out to loosen it just the tiniest bit. Davesprite’s head is tilted up towards the ceiling, and he’s focusing on recounting his story even though the pheromones are swarming, clambering up his nose. So he is caught off guard in the most awful way when Rose’s dainty index finger slips between the scarf and his all too sensitive flesh, at a spot particularly close to his cloaca. 

He flinches and his jaw connects with the top of Rose’s head. This doesn’t send her face first into his clavicle, thank goodness, but it does provide a momentary distraction before she notices that his vent is opening. 

Davesprite panics and begins thrashing, though his movements are very restricted, thanks to Rose’s good work. His animal instincts are excited but his human common sense warns him that this is _wrong, wrong, wrong_. Unfortunately, Rose recovers faster than he can hide his shame. 

The scarf prevents him from wriggling out of his bonds, and when he stops squirming so that he can rest and think of the best possible way to rut his vent against— fuck—no, get the hell out of the room— Rose is staring at his goddamn cloaca. 

“That’s not… the sheath for your sword, is it?” she murmurs, glancing up at his face, trying to decipher his feelings behind the dense shades. 

Davesprite swallows. “In a word, no,” He laughs, a shaky caw that’s short and hollow, “but you might as well stick something sharp in there and kill me quick.” 

There’s an odd look on her face. Then, with the same index finger that minutes before had been close to cutting him some slack, she releases him from hell. 

“Ah!” he gasps, and Rose draws the finger a little ways out, then slides it back in. “It’s—Rose, fuck, it’s not a fucking— va-vagina.”

“Is it not? I think I know my way around those.” 

“N-no. Stop. Please, stop.” He’s shaking now, and his tail is straining against the scarf. He’s looking down at her head of white-blonde hair, but seeing her gaze transfixed on his cloaca sends a trill up his spine, so he closes his eyes. A fluffy black mane swims in his view.

Rose is too curious about his strange genitalia to stop, and she thinks that maybe if he comes he’ll be able to explain what he’s doing here without wanting to rape her. She needs to know. 

Davesprite inhales and exhales through his nose in quick bursts, entire body quivering, heart palpitating madly. He can feel a slow build of turbulent heat in his lower abdomen, and he wills it to flare and consume him. He asks Rose to stop a few more times, but after a certain point it’s probably better if he orgasms. Leaving him with blue balls if her conscience gets through that thick skull of hers is something he’d rather not experience. 

Her finger is taking too long to produce the desired result, so she pulls it out, momentarily leaving her “partner” in the lurch. He caws and he’s furious, both at her for going on even after he’s told her to quit, and at himself for wanting it so badly, not just his crow parts but his human parts too. There’s always been some sexual tension between them, and although his own Rose from his own doomed timeline has been erased, this Rose is real—this Rose is real, the Real Rose who cohabits with the Real Dave and _jesus fucking christ_ her tongue feels _so fucking good_.  

He crows at a pitch not meant for human ears, and while she can’t hear his scream she knows he is done. A sticky white film coats the inside of her mouth. She pulls her face away from his cloaca, stands, and looks for a garbage can. 

Davesprite is not exhausted after he comes. He has much more vitality than a common human male, but he’s reasonably tired. He hadn’t had one like that in ages, good fucking god. And if he’s a bit uncomfortable that Rose made him orgasm like that, he’s gonna make damn sure she knows it. 

The seer spits out the sperm into a bin lined with a plastic bag. It leaves a salty aftertaste drastically different from her wine. 

“Why the fuck would you do that,” Davesprite says, a world-weary whine sharpening the edge on his voice. It makes the hairs on Rose’s forearms stand up. “I told you to stop so many frickin’ times. Did you not hear me? What, are your brains gumming up your ears?” 

She’s feeling defensive, but guilt is languidly wrapping around her neck, squeezing. “Says the bastard who outright threatened to RAPE ME,” she proclaims loudly, dodging the question.  

“And then I was about to shoot out into the hallway!” he snarls back, wrenching in his bonds. “Fuck, Rose, I wanted to leave!” 

“I wanted answers!” she screams, stomping up to him, and he’s trying to draw up to his full height, but the knots are too tight, so his tail is growing with nowhere to go. “I still haven’t received my answers. John is dead, Jade is alone, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why Vriska would take _you_ back to the asteroid, where you can mope and moan and drive me insane about your tragic hero bullshit as one more unreal Dave! Oh, I’m sorry, did I hit a nerve!” 

She has. She has hit a nerve, because he’s angry and his jaw is set with his teeth bared in an ugly grimace but he’s deflating and tears are beginning to creep down his face. Rose’s face softens, and her fists, which she had not realized were balled, unclench. A deep wave of exhaustion rolls over her, smothering her soul with pity and regret. Davesprite watches as the fight leaves her body.  

“Untie me.” 

“Davesprite—” 

“Get me out of this fucking bondage crap.” 

She doesn’t think he’s going to hurt her. And even if he tries, he knows he’ll be knocked out in a second. That she can see. So Rose carefully picks apart the knots, working quickly, silently. They don’t exchange words. Davesprite can still smell the heavy scent of Rose’s fertility, but while his body urges him to mate, he’s much too upset to try. When he’s free, he breezes past her and slams the door aside with such force that she winces. Then he’s gone. 

Rose tiptoes to the open entryway, and peers around the side. An orange flash whips around the curve of the corridor. 

So much for her answers. 

She closes the panel quietly, and returns to the other side of the room, sinking heavily onto her bed. Her fingers twitch, calling out her half-empty wine bottle. She raises the rim to her lips, takes a small sip. 

There would be time for them both to mend. She could try speaking to him in a day or so, maybe chat with him over pesterchum to test the waters first. This isn’t their first fight, and wouldn’t be their last. They would be able to forgive each other for their stupid, disparately motivated actions. It wasn’t the end of their relationship, just a pothole in the road. This is what Rose Lalonde can see. The most fortuitous outcome of this mind-boggling morning is that they are going to be much more open with each other down the line— he with his feelings of lust and inadequacy, and she with her drive to dispel the chokehold of authoritarian providence while desiring to remain unseen. They could make a good pair. 

Together, they could bring about the true End Game. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Woohoo! I hope you liked it. Feel free to express a constructive critique if you want, or just leave a kudos if you're passing by. Thank you very much, and I hope to see you again! The next challenge I'm participating in is Drone Season, so that should be fun!


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